Guest Author: Alisse Lee Goldenberg

I am excited to welcome author Alisse Lee Goldenberg, who is celebrating the release of her new YA fantasy, The Dybbuk’s Mirror.

It has been nearly two years since the events in The Strings of the Violin, and Carrie has adjusted to life as a university student far from her friends. However, when the path to Hadariah is sealed, she starts to fear malevolent forces may be behind the other strange occurrences around her. Trying to contact Lindsay and Rebecca to get help in unraveling the mystery, Carrie discovers that her friends are in fact missing. With no way of knowing who to trust, Carrie must find a way back to the land she once saved to rescue her friends from the dybbuks’ clutches.

Reuniting with the dybbuk princess Emilia, and finding a new friend in the mysterious farmer Mikhail, Carrie must once again do battle with Asmodeus’s forces, and help stop the chaos that threatens to overtake the land while striving to save both Lindsay and Rebecca. For the first time, Carrie is working without the two friends who have helped her through every major decision in her life. Carrie must learn to rely on herself, and find her own strengths to save those she holds dear.

Make sure you stick around to the end. We’ll be giving away a $20 Amazon Giftcard. _____________________________________________

Side Characters

The Dybbuk’s Mirror is a sequel to the fantasy novel The Strings of the Violin. Both novels have a focus on Eastern European folk lore, but the characters are ones we can relate to. In The Dybbuk’s Mirror, the main character of Carrie finds herself once more drawn into the magical world of Hadariah after her two best friends Lindsay and Rebecca go missing. She learns that they have been kidnapped by dybbuks, in retaliation for what was done to them the last time she and her friends were there. Carrie must now find a way to get them back.

In the first novel, the world of Hadariah was crumbling, and was shrouded in darkness. This time, I was able to flesh out the world a lot more, and as such, I was able to populate it with many different kinds of characters, from the fantastical shretele, to a group of travelling bandits, to the citizens of the towns of Muzikonstin and Shkalo. However, there are a couple of characters that really stuck with me, and will definitely have a larger role to play as the story continues. They are the characters of Mina and Mikhail.

In The Dybbuk’s Mirror, we see that everyone is dealing with a sort of loss. In Carrie’s case, she has lost her friends. When we meet Mina, she is a woman alone in a world, trying to run her own business in a small town. She seems to have no one, and yet she is still strong in her own quiet way. Mina is not the typical female hero. She has no desire to be a warrior, or protector of anyone really. What she wants is to be left alone, yet that is most certainly not what she needs. It is apparent to Carrie that she is dealing with something painful, and that pain is most likely associated with the loss of someone dear to her. The question is whether or not Mina should let Carrie in to help her. Mina is the sort of character I love to write. She is, at first glance, a small sort of character. If you describe her to someone, she is nothing special, and yet, I love her. She feels real to me. I have known lots of ‘Minas’ in my life, and they are the type of people you want on your side. They are strong in all the ways that really matter.

Mikhail came to me as a bit of an enigma. He is the son of a farmer, who grew up on a farm at the foot of the Mountain of Darkness, and so, his whole life, he has looked at the dybbuks as being a bit of a nuisance that you have to put up with. He is Princess Emilia’s best friend, and finds himself swept along on this adventure with her and Carrie. He has never met Lindsay and Rebecca, yet he feels that going along to save them is the right thing to do. He believes in what is right, and is willing to fight for it. Yet, he doesn’t fight with a sword, or with physical strength. Mikhail uses what he has, and that is his brain. In this way, he and Carrie are very similar. Neither of them are well-suited for any physical confrontation. It’s best if he left that to the Princess! Mikhail grew up with only his father to care for him, and it’s this lack of a mother that Emilia identified with early on. Their bond is very much that of a sister and brother, and this familial love that they have for one another is quite strong. At first, writing Mikhail, I was nervous, and that’s why I say that he was a bit of an enigma. I had never really focused on a male lead before, and I wanted to get his voice right. But after a while, I stopped thinking of it like “write like a boy” and more of “he’s a human being. Write like a person”. I don’t think this way when I write my animal characters! I’m not concerned with sounding like a nightingale or a fox. Now, Mikhail is very much one of my favourites.

So, those are my two favourite new characters that I have added to my Hadariah family. Feel free to check out more of my ramblings on my blog: www.alisseleegoldenberg.com

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Meet Alisse Lee Goldenberg!

Alisse Lee Goldenberg is an author of horror and Young Adult fantasy fiction. She has her Bachelors of Education and a Fine Arts degree, and has studied fantasy and folk lore since she was a child. Alisse lives in Toronto with her husband Brian, their triplets Joseph, Phillip, and Hailey, and their rambunctious Goldendoodle Sebastian.

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I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.